6 in the Sticks

Tomorrow is our magical day as far as Moose's health goes. I hate to say it and jinx ourselves, but I think he is going to be fine. He was very active yesterday and ate a lot of food. He still seems to be weak and fargile but he perked up a little at least.

I think everyone is starting to feel better. A little woosey but no more throwing up. I'll be doing more disinfecting today so hopefully the house will be germ free from this virus by the time my dad & Christine get here tomorrow night.

Woke up this morning to -32 below 0. It has been a pretty cold weekend so we weren't able to go snowmobiling and ice fishing with the kids, kind of cooped up really.
Moose has been doing good and we are looking up with him even more now. But something is up with our fish tank. I busted Charly playing with a couple of toys in the fish tank last week and got after her. By Friday, the tank started turning more green and one of the fish died. So I finally got around to cleaning the tank yesterday and all seemed good. Until this morning, we lost our sucker fish, a red fish and the new dragin fish is looking a little more sick than he already does naturally. I don't get it because I changed filters, and put all of that good stuff you should when cleaning the tank. Weird. Better our fish though instead of our dog, I guess.
Yesterday Ash watched the kids while Jeromy and I took my dad out to where we shot our moose and looked around for moose sheds.We didn't see anything but there was still moose sign all around. It was neat to give dad a play by play and show him the beautiful spot we hunted. Oh was it cold outside though, the only thing that was exposed on my body was my eyes and my face around them frosted up, I was afraid my lashes would freeze and break off if that is possible.
Interesting Art: the pictures.
Like I said, we were a little cooped up in the house and had already did a few projects during the day and jackson and Charly were so crazy by supper time. So we traced their bodies onto paper. Jackson immediately left to play the hunting game with grandpa after we traced him and Charly instructed me on things to color.
Her picture, she told me what colors to use and what kind of clothes to put on and then she told me that she was wearing red gloves and chopping wood and to draw the wood and so forth and then she told me that her face was sweaty from chopping wood just like daddy.
Jackson's picture. Charly instructed me as well on colors and so forth and she said she'd help me so I'm coloring along and look at what she did. That long thing in the middle of Jackson's picture. I looked at it, and if you see it the same way I see it you just think ????? what in the world is drawing?! So I said, "Charly, what is that?" She told me it was Dora and Boots and then perceeded to draw two more, I just told her good job. I noticed that when she colors she's been drawing a lot of circles with divits on the ends but this was the longest one yet.
And then jeromy walks in, takes a look and says "Oh Charly, I worry about you."
Sometimes it is so hard not to laugh out loud at things they do.

Well another rough start today. Jeromy took off yesterday afternoon for Princeton for the week. Yesterday we woke up to -32 below and the word around town was that school's may be closed today. So I wake up early this morning and check the temp on our thermometer and it was at least -30 below again. I turn on the tv for the listing of schools being closed, check the weather on the internet and see that the current temp with windchill is -40 below. It seemed all of the schools south of us to Duluth were closed. Ely is usually the procrastinator when it comes to posting whether or not they will close so I figured they were just taking their sweet old time again.
So, I give the radio station in Ely a call to see if the school was closed as the schools instruct us to listen to WELY for details. My voice didn't want to work yet as I was so so tired after getting up several times to put wood in the stove, let the dog out and all of that good stuff in a restless night. Good old small town radio station has only one person working and it was the DJ that answered and failed to let me know I was on air. Of course I had to be the butt of his jokes as he informed me that I was supposed to be listening to the station for details and yada yada and be sure to keep listening. Oouy. This is the third time this has happened to me, but the first time I was half asleep.
Anyway, the guy from the station told me that it wasn't offical yet but he heard that the garage got a call and that the school was probably going to be closed today. (I'm guessing when he referred to the garage he meant where the school buses are parked) So it was good enough for me and I told the girls that school was probably closed. So little miss Jessica was out the door to see her boyfriend and Ash back to bed. Important detail: The school didn't close. And I figured that out when I kept watching the news and noticed that Ely wasn't on the list or the surrounding schools for that matter. So by 8:30am I call the school and find out that they are on for today. Oops! So we scrambled and managed to get Ash to school. Jessica on the other hand hasn't responded to my messages or my text telling her to go to school. Anyone want to place dibs on what time she'll call and tell me that she didn't get service and didn't get my messages until it was to late? Yeah. I think anywhere between 1-3pm.
I had to call Jeromy twice this morning too because the water heater was making noises like it does when we run out of propane but we got a new tank on Friday so I thought it was a little soon even though I had the furnace going last night. But after I checked a couple of things and talked to Jeromy about it, we figured since it was so cold out and the showers running, and the heat going and so forth that it just wasn't getting enough pressure. So I relit the water heater and it has been running fine and hasn't made any noise so we will keep our fingers crossed.
The kids and I saw a smaller deer on the way to school. It looked as if he was standing in the sunshine to get warm after a cold night. He huffed at us as I could see the steam from his breath and he stomped his foot down, and his hair was standing up so he looked real fluffy. He never moved as we slowly drove past him. That was really cool. I wish I would remember the camera in the car!
Even though it is so cold outside, the sun is shining and the snow is glissering and it's just gorgeous out!

Well, if you agreed with me then you guessed right. Jess called home at 1:55pm saying she just got the messages at 1:30 and didn't know what to do because there would only be a half hour left of school. Lord, give me strength!

Well we survived yesterday.
Ashley was late coming out of the school after bball practice yesterday and was I getting pretty heated after I was sitting there for 20 minutes waiting and waiting. I see the other girls from her team run out and still no Ashley. It was a late practice already (practice was supposed to be done at 7:00pm) Well, about 5minutes after her coaches head out the doors and two messages on her cell phone later she comes running out. So I'm was sitting there thinking she was screwing around in the school with some friends and taking her sweet time coming out to the van. She hopes in the van and immediately tells me how sorry she was for being late but she had asked one of the coaches to help her on her shots for 15 minutes. My heart sunk, I felt so proud and guilty for thinking she was running around. So a few of the coaches hung out, which was also so nice because I would think at 7pm they are ready to get home to their families on a Mon. night. I can't tell you how impressed I've been with her game. Especially since she didn't practice all summer long. 2-3 yrs ago she wouldn't care if she was the worst player or not and refused to work on diffirent things that she would need to work on. Jeromy and I have talked about how much she has blossomed over the past few years not only in basketball but all around as a person. Well we will enjoy it because she'll be seventeen before we know it as well.

I'm sure I sound so brutal sometimes talking about Jessica. I love her very much and she tests my patience ALL OF THE TIME! But I also know that she is trying to figure things out as she approaches adulthood. But I do spend a lot of my time imagining grabbing her by the shoulders and screaming WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING!!!!

Jackson has also gone through some major growing within his personality. For the most part, he speaks in full sentences and likes to use quite a bit of humor with the whole family. It's pretty funny how he gets Jessica & Ashley going sometimes. He knows what gets to them and uses it for a good laugh. My little man. I teared up a little thinking about him last night and what a joy it is to have a little boy with all of that dirty rough and tumble kind of stuff. And thinking about for the first several days of his life how traumatic that was and how we came close to losing him. I think about a couple I know that just lost their second child a month or so ago immediately after birth and my heart goes out to them. I am very thankful.
Jackson is so physically solid and quick on his feet. He was screwing around with Ashley the other night by having her sit on the floor and he would run towards her from the other side of the room really fast. Then after a few more times he changed it up by going zig zag super fast. Ashley and I were laughing so hard we wanted to cry. Then he'd say, "watch this!" and run a little bit and jump up and spin in the air (imagine an iceskater) and land so strong and solid back on his feet. My little ape boy.

Charly, sneaky sneaky Charly. She is so good at lingering around the corner when you don't know and peeks around the corner. She is so independent. Although she plays so good with others she also likes to play alone and has a very good imagination. The other night I heard her talking to herself and pretending to talk to others as well. "Where should we go? Naw, not there, should we go over the mountain? Yay we did it!" She was pretending to be Dora on her own adventure. She's so funny because she's at that shy stage now so if she sees you watching her, she'll freeze. So we too have to be sneaky sometimes to catch a glimpse into her imagination. But she uses her sneakiness to her advantage as well. One day I can't remember what she had but she was hiding under the kitchen table peeking just a little above the table at me. Which is a cue to ask, "Whatchya doing Charly?" She is in that faze that she'll spot an ink pen and duck out of the room and color whatever is in her path. I found her trail from the couch to her bedroom wall and now the other day a few of her new dolls in the family room. So I say as I'm holding her dolls to her, "Hey Charly, look what happened to your dolls. Look at their faces, there is pen marks all over them. Do you know what happened or who could have done this?" She replied, "Ummm, I think... it was Jackie." Little stinker. So I smile at her and tell her how I know that she is telling me a story and get her to confess to it. And then I added a drastic story about how the pen won't come off and if she colors on her dolls we would have to throw them in the garbage. Her bottom lip comes out a little as she looks a little frightened and says, " You can't throw them in the garbage because my babies would cry." After a little more discussion she assured me that she would color on paper only.

Moose is back on dry dog food and a little more active. he is such a good dog.
We now have 2 fish and the frog left in our tank.

Jeromy called last night and said the company put him in a room with a very interesting character. He described the guy as a man close to 400 pounds. He said the guy told him that he was an insomniac and hopes that he won't keep him up all night. Jeromy said he thought he was a little strange but didn't really think that until he woke up to him yesterday morning. He said his roomate was getting ready after his shower over by the sink area and while he was looking at himself in the mirror he kept telling himself over and over, "Man! I'm good looking! Man, whew, I am such a good looking man!" OMG I busted a gut, so of course I had to tease Jeromy and tell him, "Sounds like you've met your match." 3 seconds later after it sunk in, he's like "What?! Oh you are so mean." I wonder how much sleep he got last night, I bet he kept an eye open most of the night. Can't wait to hear what happened today.

Well Jeromy had another morning of his roommate telling himself how hansom he was. Jeromy said this guy is a complete slob (which must be bad if Jeromy thinks so) Jeromy said he woke up this morning to his alarm and was going to get in the bathroom and his roommate was watching tv and said " Well, guess I better get ready now that I've been up for the past 4 1/2 hours." Jeromy said he thought to himself, okay whatever.
Jeromy said that he's looking pretty clean compared to this guy. Papers all over the place from ripping names the other day, I guess the maid just walked around that area not knowing what was trash and so forth. The bathroom towel that's meant for a floormat after showers was laying on the floor really soaked and the the bar of soap laying in the bottom of the bathtub. He can't stand it. Sounds like this guy is such a character in his own little world. You the man!! lol.

Yesterday was just nuts, have you ever had a day that was just so weird and you felt like there was a cloud hanging around? I did yesterday but kept imagining myself blowing that big old cloud away in fear that I would jinx my day and bring more little isssues.
It started with another morning of the water heater clicking and me turning it off and relighting it and stopping the furnace and relighting that before bedtime too. But I've mastered that now and am no longer afraid that I will blow up the house.
After I picked Ashley up from basketball I swung over to the park where the snow sculptures are and was hoping to take some pictures but my camera wasn't working so I was a little bummed but will futs with it today and hope I can get some shots tonight.
So I pulled into our driveway and shut the van off, I noticed my break lights never went out. After futsing with everything I had called Jeromy and then called my brother who then walked me through how to access the fuse boxes and check some things. I ended up disconnecting the battery for the first time while I was afraid I would electricude myself. But another thing I've mastered now as I had to reconnect in order to get Ash off to school (Jess is homesick again)
Back to last night though, the microwave starting buzzing when I was making the kids popcorn and lit up like a xmas tree. It must have been a bunk bag of popcorn because I took that out and tried again and worked fine. Weird.
Towards the tail end of the night I walk into the bathroom and the light starts fickering and burns out, it was just a weird ora or whatever yesterday. The little ones ended up going to bed at 1am and Jess woke me up at 6am this morning to say she was sick. Tons and tons of coffee today.
Hope the car shop can take a quick peek at my car and fix whatever is going on.
Still laughing about Jeromy's roommate. Jeromy just can't believe him. Another day of "Man I'm so good looking!" in the mirror and more and more things laying all over the place, and sopping wet towels laying in the bathtub with bars of soap still wrapped in the hotel wrapper in there with the towels. Comical.

The other day the kids and I drove by town and the city of Babbitt was burning garbage or whatever it is that they burn every once in a while near that "pond" on the way to our house. It usually smokes up the road pretty good in places and stinks good too.
Anyway, we're driving along and Jackson starts saying, " Eou, oh , nasty smoke, aurgh, ERGH I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE SMOKE!!" My mom still smokes and has for many years and has attempted to quit so many many times. And you know how brutally honest kids can be so Jackson (being an old man in a 4yr old body) always lets her know how smoking makes you stink and that he doesn't like that she smokes (sorry mom) so on this day, I don't know what was running through his mind, maybe a group of 50 people having a smoke break? I just had to laugh to myself and then explained to him that it was the city workers burning nasty garbage or something.

Oh my gosh, I am absolutely dying!! Just had to hop back on and type about Jeromy's roommate again. I do have a life, honestly.
Yesterday evening Jeromy's roommate told him that it was a good thing his toes didn't get frostbit yesterday afternoon. So Jromy asked why. He said that he had looked down and his toes were hanging out of his shoes, "They just busted right out of my shoes", he told him. Jeromy was laughing to himself and just had to ask "So what did you do?" He replied, " So, I called Benny'". Their boss. Too funny! Jeromy had to ask, "What did Benny say?" " Benny said, so put on another pair of shoes. And I said I can't because I'm 40 miles away from the hotel. So Benny said he'd bring them to me." So, needless to say Benny brought the guy his shoes, met him at a gas station to do so. Benny did not put his car into park when he met the guy, got out to give the guy his shoes, his car rolled away as he did so and hit a telephone pole!

We have been busy busy the past few days. Jeromy was able to come home a couple of days early which really worked out for me because I had volunteered to run the concession stand at the high school during the girls basketball games. Jeromy was so sad to leave his new best bud, wonder if I should wake him up every morning screaming from in front of the mirror about what a great looking guy I am so he doesn't feel so lost without him..Hahaha....not! He did say that the last morning he was there, his roomie came into the the room, looked at his side, and then Jeromy's and said, " Boy, I guess I'm pretty messy. Guess I'm used to my wife cleaning up after me all of the time." Unbelievable!! What year has he been living in, 1950?! Jeromy loved telling me that comment, he knew it would get my goat. I just don't get it sometimes, especially this day in age where a man would expect his wife to wipe his you know what. And some women let them. I know there are women out there that nothing makes them more happy then spending their time cooking, cleaning, and doing everything for their family. But to have it expected of them drives me so nuts. Crazy. I feel very fortunate that my dad at times not only got up for work at 4am and worked a full day, but would come home, find time to exercise, cook dinner and clean. And play with us. When my parents were together, it seemed like teamwork, not the women does this and the man does that. And I am very fortunate that my husband sees having a family as teamwork between a man and a women rather than he works, comes home and does nothing while I should do everything else. I am very VERY blessed.

I had fun on my first 2 hour shift running concessions and seeing a bunch of kids that I haven't seen for so long, I didn't recognise some of them because they wear makeup now. Times goes faster and faster. What is so fun about a pickle on a stick anyway? Weird.

Yesterday I painted three walls in Jackson & Charly's room as it was very much needed. I had picked up some wall stickers from the dollar store and thought it would be fun to have the kids stick them on their on wall. Will have to take some shots so you can see what they did. They are so excited to a fresh little change to their room. Jackson walked in and looked all around and said, "I really like this green." Charly got some letter stickers to spell a couple of words if she wanted, so I told her, " You can put Girls Rule, Charly, or Charly Grace, ABC, or some other small words on your wall if you want." Charly said, " I need to put Girls Rule." Ashley overheard and piped up, " Now, that's my little sister!" So we got the stickers on their walls and they are so happy. We've got a couple of other things in mind for a quick, CHEAP change to their room. Hopefully Charly is done with her coloring the walls with an ink pen phase. Does anyone know how to get ink pen marks out of fabric? She colored their little couch too.

And then we swapped Jessica's twin bed for the old, very old futon in the family room. She wanted it, which I couldn't figure out why because I can only think of three people who enjoy sleeping on it when they come to visit. But they will probably enjoy her old twin bed instead.

Our water hasn't been draining from the kitchen and laundry tub. Jeromy tried to get it unplugged but thinks we might have a frozen pipe. Hope we don't have as much trouble as everyone else around here, including my aunt and now my uncle. Their water froze due to lack of snow during our cold snap. And they both have quite the mess to deal with.

Jackson & Charly are back to school every Tues this week. And my Starting your own business class at Vermilion Community college is approaching. I am so excited. I sure hope I get very usefull information so maybe we will be on a good road to stay and live where we love, and live comfortably in the process. We have known for quite some time now that probably the only way we could stay in the Ely area is to have our own business of some sort. We,ve come up with many diffirent ideas through the past few years but didn't really come up with a solid idea until this past year and kept it under wraps in fear that someone would jump us to the punch. So, we've been doing some research here and there to find a way to have something that would stick as so many little businesses in our area come and go. So I'm looking forward to this class.

Well, my pictures do not really capture how wonderful a couple of these snow sculptures are, but you get the idea. I love that Ely does this every year. It's this time of year that makes me think of my grandparents too as they enjoyed living in Ely so much. Grandma one time told me that Ely was like a little Christmas town (all of the shops decorate at the same time and take them down at the same time) And both of my grandparents loved the snowsculptures. And this year, people can drive through the park to view them! Maybe one of these days I will be able to get some better shots. Hope you enjoy anyway.

Happy Birthday today Grandpa! We love you and miss you so much!

Two of about 6 babies that Charly decided to color pen all over. In addition to our walls, their little couch, her new shoes, and I'm sure something else I haven"t discovered yet, hopefully not.
Paper only Charly!

Here are a few shots of Jackson & Charly's room. You can see the wall stickers they put onto their walls.

Well, tonight was the first bus trip home from a game for Ashley since the last trip when she got sick on the bus. She was a little nervous knowing how easily she gets car sick and was worried that it would happen all over again. It didn't. The worst is over....for now. I'm sure we will encounter yet another drama filled saga before she graduates. But at least she can put her mind at ease for a while. And her team won their game against Cook. Ashley made five shots, two of them freethrows. Yay Ashley!!

Well, it's official. No more potty chair and no more pullups at night time. It has been a week now and hopefully all will keep going strong. They both stuggled with going poo in the toilet though and I could tell it was giving them, (especially Jackson), anxiety worrying about falling into the toilet and hanging on without going potty outside of the toilet. So we picked up one of those nifty soft kid seats, ours happens to be Dora, and a step stool high enough for them to put their feet on while they sit. We struggled with the stool, we could never find one high enough. Jeromy was about to make one out of wood which we really didn't care for that because of the small bathroom space we have, and then I found just a regular skid free step stool by the brooms and mops at Target for only $5.99 verses the little stools in the kids section for almost $20.00.
They are pretty excited about going to the bathroom all by theirselves and it is so cute how they encourage and cheer eachother on.
Way to go Munchkins!!

My goodness the time is gone. Valentine's Day already and I suppose Easter tomorrow. Anyway, we hope everyone reading this has a very nice day. Another beautiful day here with the sun shining and I think it is only ten below outside. Whewwee! A heat wave! Some say it will be twenty degrees this weekend and I hope so, and hope our pipe thaws without bursting. We are happy that we have two seperate draining systems in our house so it is only backing up when we do dishes and laundry, and if we were to use the shower downstairs. So, doing daily chores kind of sucks and the laundry and dishes build up fast around here. I don't know what was up with Jack yesterday but his axiety was full force when it came to going poo. He must have sat on the toilet six times and just couldn't go. He went through five pairs of underwear. Poor guy.

Yesterday seemed like a lot of kids were wired now that I think about it. The kids were back at school yesterday and it seemed like all of the kids had gone mad. The teachers were really running around. I'm glad that Jackson wasn't able to let me go into the mommy room because the teachers had their hands too full as it was. One kid, I think is around 15 months was walking around drinking glue like it was a baby bottle, so I pointed it out to one teacher. Ten minutes later the same little guy had slipped past them again and was running with scissors. Oops, teacher went chaising after him and he bolted. Poor teacher is pregnant and can only run so fast. And towards the end of class, the kids all line up to go to the "Muscle room", kind of like an indoor playground for little ones. As we are trying to go, another class of kids is coming out and that same little guy turns and walks into the line of the other class and walks away with them. I'm like, "Uh, Gavin is on his way with the other class." The teacher turns with another 1yr old in her hands and the poor girl had a panicked look on her face. So I held onto the little guy while she ran after the other one. Even the bigger kids were so wired. It was kind of comical.

There was a few older kids ages 3-5 dressed up in firemen uniforms and pretending to squirt everyone with plastic toy extinguishers. When they came up and disturbed my grumpy old man in a 4 yr old body things got a little tense for me as the majority of the moms in the class are treehuggers. I mean really, back when I had told them that Jeromy and I got picked for moose hunting there was a complete silence in the room. To each his own. So, when one of the boys pretended to squirt Jackson and said "I got you!" Jackson was annoyed and yelped out, "Well, I've got a twenty two!" And aimed his playdough stick at them like he was aiming to shoot. OMG. I wanted to die. So, I nonchalantly discussed with Jackson how it wasn't okay to play that way and we discussed more about guns, hunting, and so forth later. I guess it was harder for me too because I feel I have such judgmental ladies around me that maybe need to think about wearing their underwear a little more loose. Get the picture? Bottom line is I need to work on not caring so much what people think of me and my family.

Jackson loves taking pictures. Here are a few, okay maybe more out of two hundred he's taken. It's so funny because sometimes he'll sneak the camera when we aren't watching and take a few shots and then we won't notice until we go and upload to our computer. For instance last summer when I got a flat tire outside of Cloquet and it took me about two hours to change it, Jackson was there snapping away. We get a lot of shots of the tv while a movie is playing, the cat's butt, a closeup of a dalphine or dinosour, a lot of Charly, and plenty with a few feet, fingers, or eyes. The self portraits are what I found on my camera recently.

I have no clue where the weekend went. We have been getting the livingroom cleaned out and carpet ripped up because we have new carpeting being installed tomorrow. YAY!
We moved most of the furniture except for the antiques to the family room. Which is kind of funny because Ashley has a friend sleeping over tonight that has never slept over here before and Ashley gave her a full house tour.
And the really funny part was that Jeromy was in the bathroom downstairs going potty with the door open as he always does because he feels that it is "quicker" even though we tell him we would rather he close the door. What can ya do, you certainly can't teach an old dog new tricks! So, his natural consequence was Ashley marching down the stairs with her friend to show her our room and just as she steps in front of the bathroom door and says, "And this is my parents room..." You can hear Jeromy giggle a little because he was embarrassed. And Ashley's face turned red like she was about to die of embarrasment, she yells out, "FLOM!, (we used to call jeromy flom at stegers and it has stuck with me and now the kids when they get after him in a loving way), Could you please. close. the. door?" Jeromy was like, "Auh..hehe...sorry...excuse me." Poor Ashley. And her poor friend too. Her friend was ready to bolt into the familyroom as Ash led the way.

Jeromy worked on Jessica's car this morning and fixed everything he could to save her a couple hundred dollars at the shop. I don't think she ever thanked him. But that's okay. Because when you are seventeen the whole world owes you anyway.

Jessica ended up taking Ashley to Virginia with her today for a fun shopping spree. I've mentioned before how Jessica is planning on getting the heck out of here as soon as she turns 18. Which is 6 months, 21 days, and 1 hour. (just kidding and not sometimes) Well, her plans are to get an apartment with her boyfriend. So now that her cell phone and car insurance bills are paid, she went shopping for stuff for their apartment. She found a dish set on sale for $20.00. She called Eddy, (her boyfriend), and asked him if he wanted the blue set or the red set. He said blue. So Jessica bought red. It just cracks me up. And earlier today she told me that she saw there was a used couch for sale in the paper for $50.00. So she called Eddy and told him and he told her to pick it up. She was mad becuase she was thinking why should she have to pay for it and get it. I told her that if this is what her plans are that she better sit down with him and discuss who's paying for what and so forth. Believe me, I have told her many, many things trying to prepare her but what she chooses to listen to is what she chooses. It has been very hard for me these days trying not to come off as telling her what to do but rather hint subliminal messages to make her think that she came up with these thoughts on her own. It has always been trying to stay ahead of the game with Jess. Give her an inch, she'll take at least a mile...or four! I had to have a delicate talk with her as well about accumulation of furniture for her future. On contrary to belief, WE ARE NOT A STORAGE FACILITY!

I think I will start logging her statements everyday for a notebook for her so we can laugh about what the heck was going through her pretty little head twenty years from now.

A mixture of brutally honest with a lack in social skills.........

Well there was only one guy that came to install our carpeting this morning. Poor soul. But it is so nice to have new carpet. I will post some pictures later.
I had to type this about Jackson & Charly before I would forget. They were very excited about getting new carpet in the living room. I had made them some microwave popcorn for snack time and thought I could have them watch a movie in the family room while the "carpet guy", as they called him installed the carpeting. Nope. They wanted to sit at the kitchen table and snack away while watching this guy hard at work. This guy didn't say much or even acknowledge them so I figured he was a young man that hasn't been around little kids much. So he brings in the carpet pad and rolls it onto the floor and Jackson says, "Oooo, that's some nice carpet, isn't it?" I kind of laugh to myself and explain to him that it is the cushion that goes under the carpet and what the use is for and so on. Next came the carpeting. He rolled it out and was kneeling around the room to tack it down and glue it. The kids were just fixed on watching him work as they shoved handfuls of popcorn into their mouths. I took Moose outside and came back in to hear Charly say, "He's got a big butt." I thinking to myself, maybe it's okay, maybe he didn't understand her and probably didn't hear her. Leave it to Jackson to clarify things as he says very loud, " Naw...Charly the carpet guy doesn't have a big butt. Charly we don't talk about butts." He didn't do anything. For the record, he didn't have a big butt. However, he did have that common problem that a lot of construction workers, plumbers, etc. have when their heavy tools hang from their pants and they bend over and show a little booty cleavage or whatever you want to call it. So I can kind of see why Charly thought that was funny to talk about. Maybe I should teach her to say...CRACK KILLS! CRACK KILLS!

Slowly but surely I'm getting some painting done in the livingroom. It was a crazy week. Ash basically finished basketball, all the kids managed to get another bug so they were a little more on the crabby side than usual.

We had another storm hit last night and got a significant amount of snow on the ground. Maybe we'll take the kids out later today if they feel better and play in the snow.

Yes, this picture is old. I had taken this picture of Jeromy in front of the public restroom in Whittier Alaska on our honeymoon. It is a small town that we stayed for one night in 2001 before our Halibut charter on the Pacific Ocean.
The reason I took this shot is because of the funny little story behind it. We stopped to use this restroom. I went into the ladies room and Jeromy was still by the rental car and he was going to go to the men's eventually. This restroom was like restrooms you see at small campsites. Each stall had a shower curtain for a door. I was sitting in the last stall at the very end and I hear someone stomping around the outside of the building and then into the bathroom. I thought it was someone that had to go very bad. I hear someone go from stall to stall and thrash open the plastic shower curtains, I'm sitting there thinking that some lady is having trouble finding a descent toilet to use as some public areas are pretty disgusting.
So stall by stall they make their way closer to me and then suddenly my curtain thrashes open and I look up so shocked and puzzled to see Jeromy, who immediately turns red. I say, " What the heck are you doing?!" He pipes up, "This is the Men's room. I was looking for toilet paper." I said, " Get out of here! This is the Ladies room you dork! Read the sign outside!" He's still a little red from busting in on me going to the bathroom and kept insisting it was the Men's room and finally walked outside to read he was in the ladies room. And then I hear him yell, "Sorry!" So we laugh about it and once in a while Jeromy tries to deny it. So I remind him why I took that picture.

Somethings never change. Some time shortly after that, we went out for a couple of beers with my grandpa and aunt, Laurie to a pub in Ely called, De's. Jeromy went to go to the bathroom and stepped into the ladies room. AGAIN! Laurie, grandpa, and I laughed so hard we almost feel off our chairs and of course I had to recap the time we were in Alaska. And Jeromy got some rude looks from a couple of ladies. They probably thought he was a pervert or something.

And yesterday, Jeromy and I went out to the Steak House in Ely for lunch. Their restrooms could be pretty confusing for people who really don't know anything about deer because the Men's room is labled, BUCK and the ladies room is labled, DOE. And what's funny is that once you enter the ladies room labled, DOE. There is another sign on the inside of the door labled, BUCK as a joke and vise versa on the men's room. So someone like my wonderful husband, Jeromy could get quite confused.

And he did. He went to the bathroom, looked at each door and couldn't remember if he was a buck or a doe and said to himself, whatever, and walked into the ladies room thinking it was the men's. There was a lady in the next stall. Jeromy just thought it was a guy. Then he said he thought to himself, 'Huh, two stalls in the bathroom and that's it.' So he again thought whatever and did his business and washed his hands and walked over to blow dry his hands and looks to the wall and sees a tampon machine and thinks to himself, oh no. He looks to the door and sees the sign marked buck and thinks for a second, then looks at the tampon machine again, then hears someone in the stall and it occurs to him. OH NO! And walked right out and comes back to our table laughing to himself and his face was SO red. Oops.
So which is it Jeromy?! Are you a buck or a doe?! LOL!